I wish there’s a better meme to describe the current Malaysia-China relationship lol
The Malaysian political class has always played the strategic hedging game with more powerful nations. In the case of China, they’re super happy to take Chinese investments and even take their aid in building out large-scale infrastructure (just earlier this year, I learned that Penang accepted the large above-water power transferring cables on floats, from China, in order to replace the existing old power cables underneath the first Penang bridge), and meekly complain about China encroaching on the South China Sea. I sometimes wonder if they’re happy to play that game just cause of how little they care about East Malaysia, which is more dependent on the South China Sea. Overall, Malaysia is playing a risky and IMO losing game against China.
In Canadian context, the Eastern Malaysian states are kinda like BC and Alberta in some ways: a lot of political decisions are West-Malaysian-centric, so separatist sentiment rises from time to time. East Malaysia more rich in off-shore oil fields, but West Malaysia don’t particularly lack them. In terms of political culture, all of Malaysia’s considered culturally conservative so both sides aren’t too different in that sense (but at least East Malaysian governments aren’t jerks, unlike the government in that one province we know of). Their local cultures differ quite a lot though.